Healing
by jazzpha
Summary: After tragedy strikes in Hueco Mundo, Tatsuki tries to pull her oldest friend away from the brink of a second self-destructive spiral. Ichigo/Tatsuki, One-Shot.


**Healing**

* * *

Tatsuki Arisawa trudged into class barely stifling a yawn, cursing Mondays with all of her might as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes. When she opened them back up again, though, she saw something that made her expression go wide with surprise.

Orihime was back.

"Good morning, Tatsuki!" she said with her usual cheerfulness, springing up from her seat and giving her friend a hearty embrace.

"I missed you so much," Orihime continued in a slightly trembling whisper, soft enough so that no one else could hear. Tatsuki wasn't surprised by how shaken her best friend seemed; after all, she had just returned from some kind of heinous captivity in a world that was far from home and populated by people that would probably just as soon have killed her as kept her around. But as Tatsuki's gaze swept over the rest of the people she knew to have powers like Orihime, one very important face was missing from the group.

"Orihime," she said seriously, "where's Ichigo?"

Her friend stepped back from her at the question, Orihime's normally bright eyes clouding over as she hung her head.

"He's not going to be coming in for a while," Ishida's sharp voice broke in, picking up Orihime's slack. Tatsuki raised a confused eyebrow at the tone of his voice, but as her gray eyes passed over the room again, they widened in understanding and shock before softening in sadness.

Rukia wasn't there, either.

"She didn't make it back," Orihime choked out, unable to keep her emotions in check any longer. "I couldn't save her, Tatsuki. I tried, but—but I just couldn't. She tried to save me, and I couldn't save her when I needed to!"

Ishida moved over and wrapped his arms around her comfortingly, a vain attempt at providing his grieving friend with some solace. The atmosphere of the room had shifted from grudgingly unpleasant to utterly crushing and two minutes later Tatsuki was racing down the hall headed for the front door, her bags lying forgotten on her desk.

She had expected to feel liberated, but instead all Tatsuki felt was an ache in her chest as the finality of the situation finally settled down over her. She hadn't really known Rukia that well, but they'd spent enough time together for her to know that the reserved, introspective girl had nonetheless been kind when it mattered, and had been fiercely protective of her friends.

Like Ichigo. Especially Ichigo. She'd managed to draw a smile out of that stoic Kurosaki moron in a way no one had since Ichigo's mother, back when he and Tatsuki had been kids. She had been a pillar of support for him during the very radical changed he'd gone through, and Tatsuki was afraid. Afraid that, with the pillar having crumbled out from under him, there was nothing left for Ichigo to do but fall.

And she couldn't let that happen.

Blinking out of her thoughts, Tatsuki realized that her feet had carried her instinctively to the bank of the river where she'd found Ichigo mourning the passing of his mother all those years ago. And now she saw the same spiky crown of orange hair gleaming in the gentle morning sunlight as Ichigo sat on the grass once again, staring out blankly towards the horizon.

"Orihime told me what happened," Tatsuki said as she sat down next to her friend, breaking the silence. "I thought I'd find you here, Ichigo."

Ichigo said nothing for several heartbeats, his brown eyes that were usually the gems of emotion set in the stoic frame of his face completely deadened and dull.

"I'm sorry, Ichigo," she offered in a gentler tone. "I know how much you cared about her—"

"She's dead, Tatsuki," he finally spoke, his voice as haggard and rife with self-loathing as Tatsuki had ever heard it. "She's dead, and it's all because I couldn't get to her in time. I was too weak to help her, and she got skewered on some sick bastard's trident. I let her die… just like I let my mother die."

Tatsuki flinched at the harsh tone in her old friend's voice, but fought through it anyway; right now, what he needed was a swift kick in the ass to jolt him out of his self-pity. And that was the least she could do, as someone who considered herself his friend.

"You didn't let her die, Ichigo," she parried, her expression creasing into a frown as she saw him turn his head away from her. "Damn it, look at me!" she growled in frustration, and Ichigo's jaw tensed instinctively as if it was expecting to be slugged. But instead Tatsuki's hand came to rest gently on his cheek, turning his head around so that their eyes were finally locked.

"You didn't let her die, don't you get that?" Tatsuki repeated, her tone growing softer but losing none of its strength. "Orihime told me that Rukia died trying to save her, Ichigo. She made the ultimate sacrifice trying to save her friend, just like you would have done for Rukia back when you went to Soul Society to save her! So stop wallowing and beating yourself up, Ichigo; Kuchiki gave her life up willingly for the sake of someone else, not because you were too weak to rescue her! What do you think she would say if she saw you here, sulking like a child instead of honoring her memory, you idiot!?"

Ichigo remained stone silent for several moments, but then Tatsuki's restrained outburst had the unexpected effect of drawing a bittersweet smirk out of her friend as his eyes became obscured with a memory that only he could see.

"She'd probably call me an idiot and kick my ass until I apologized and promised never to do it again."

"Well, I've got step one covered," Tatsuki replied with a relieved smile, "and I've been meaning to work on my snap-kick recently, anyway."

Ichigo tensed again, a reflex his body had adopted after years of his friend pounding him into the mat during karate practice.

"Please, spare me the agony," he replied, his voice sarcastic, before he rose to his feet with a sigh and turned away from the horizon after giving it one last lingering, apologetic look. As Tatsuki stayed seated, unsure what Ichigo was going to do next, the boy looked down at her with those brown eyes of his. They were once again glowing with emotion, if only faintly.

Still, Tatsuki allowed, that was better than nothing.

"You coming or not?" Ichigo asked with impatience, his mouth quirking down into his signature frown. "Class starts in five minutes."

Tatsuki blinked in surprise before getting up, not expecting this swift of a turnaround.

"You're not going home?"

"Nah," he answered dismissively, but Tatsuki could hear the note of sadness still present in his voice. "Too many memories."

She nodded in sympathetic understanding and the two of them began to walk away from the riverbank, a companionable silence settling down between them. Ichigo's hand eventually found its way into Tatsuki's, but the orange-haired boy met his friend's look of shock with a simple, warm smile.

"Thank you, Tatsuki."

She recovered her wits quickly and turned her head slightly, hoping that Ichigo hadn't caught the light blush that had dusted her cheeks in that moment.

"I'm your friend, you idiot," she answered. "You never have to thank me."

Ichigo gave a small chuckle at that, and Tatsuki smiled to herself as she realized that the bitterness had begun to fade from his voice.

Maybe, in time, it would be gone completely.

* * *

**A/N:** Well, that was a nice little break from the longer story I'm working on right now, if I do say so myself. I've always liked Tatsuki, and I feel like she hasn't gotten nearly enough love. That, and for being Ichigo's oldest friend, the two of them haven't really interacted that much at all. So, I figured I'd give this scenario a try.

Hope you enjoyed it, and if you did (or even if you didn't), **please review**. Feedback is always awesome to get.


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